


The Lost/The Awoken

by SilverWing15



Series: Dragon Eugenics Hell [3]
Category: Flight Rising
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 15:43:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20084686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverWing15/pseuds/SilverWing15
Summary: She is not an especially intelligent dragon. Oh, certainly, she is smarter and wiser than any dragon one could find outside of the halls of the Observatory, but within the halls she is only a minor scribe.For now, at least.





	The Lost/The Awoken

She is not an especially intelligent dragon. Oh, certainly, she is smarter and wiser than any dragon one could find outside of the halls of the Observatory, but within the halls she is only a minor scribe. 

For now, at least. 

Her master has cast aside this particular vein of research because despite his high score on the exams, he isn’t particularly wise. If he doesn’t meet with immediate success then he abandons the project. 

She is more than happy to pick up his scraps and make something of them. Especially this time. He has certainly cast aside something truly great this time, she can practically taste it. There is little of the original text, this is an ancient spell even by the standards of the Observatory library. Most of the parchment has crumbled away and what text remains is faded and entirely missing in some places. 

She has spent nearly a year piecing it together. Referencing from countless other documents that are hardly in better shape than this one. She is confident in her work, though. The Observatory doesn’t create scholars who make mistakes. 

She can feel herself nearly vibrating with glee as she transcribes the last of the pieced together translation. After this she won’t be a mere scribe. They’ll make her a scholar, no they’ll make her _ Librarian _. She won’t be fetching meals and books for her master any more. He’ll be fetching them for her. She’ll research whatever her heart desires and pursue it to satisfying conclusion at all hours of the day. No more interruptions, no more lectures, no more teasing. 

She takes a deep breath and calms herself. Before any of that, she must test her hypothesis. She carefully sets the original document into a preservation field. The others will want to see it once she’s shown them her results. 

She takes a deep breath and checks once again that she has gathered the proper materials. It took her months to find the proper strain of wraith hound essence, but it will be well worth it. She drags her claw across the stone, drawing the summoning sigils. They were the least degraded part of the parchment, thankfully. If they’d been lost even she would have had to admit that the knowledge was lost and she would have had to endure the ribbing from her master. 

The sigils and materials are in place. All that is left is the power. She closes her eyes, a childish way to focus, but she doesn’t want to risk messing up over a silly thing like dignity in an empty room. When she does this again for the others she will have to use a more proper focusing method, but for now it is only her. 

_ Awaken, ancient one. You are called once again. _

Silence. 

_ I demand you awaken. _ She stomps a claw against the stone floor, tail lashing. 

_ I summon you! Answer me! _

Her claws scrape against stone, and then they don’t. They flex against nothingness and she realizes that her eyes are open. Her eyes are open, but she sees nothing, feels nothing, smells nothing. 

** _A little spark in the darkness._ ** The Thing murmurs. ** _Tell me, how long have I slept? _ **

She cannot speak. A choked noise rises from her throat but she cannot summon the words. 

** _Well?_ ** The Thing asks. She can feel its patience waning. She is the most interesting thing that has happened in countless centuries, epochs. She will be enough entertainment for the next eon regardless of whether she speaks, but it would prefer if she did. 

It doesn’t have a proper form as she knows them. It isn’t confined to anything so simple, so limited, but her mind attempts to conjure one. A tail, sinuous and dark like the trail of poison that lingers in the Plague lands. Wings, vast and impenetrable like the surface fo the water to the drowning. Eyes that glitter in the darkness, eyes that watch her. That see through her skin, into her thoughts, into her heart. 

** _Why did you summon me, little light? _ **The Thing asks. Its voice is the rumbling of an avalanche, the roar of a flooding river, the hiss of the serpent hiding in the grass.

_ I-I am a seeker of knowledge. _ She answers. 

The Thing laughs. ** _But that is not why you summoned me, is it?_ **

She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t think she should have spoken in the first place. 

** _Do you think silence will thwart me?_ ** The Thing asks. Claws the size of tree trunks coil around her. She screeches and rakes them with her talons but she makes no mark. 

The Thing laughs. It is the fall of ash, the rot of flesh, the clatter of bones and the rattling breath of the dying. ** _ Yes!_ ** The Thing cries. It is the roar of the enemy’s victory, the shattering of eggshells, the splatter of blood and intestines. ** _Struggle! Fight! _ **

She can feel its satisfaction like acid against her spine. It delights in the futility of her thrashing. Its tail lashes in excitement. 

She gasps, it is holding her too tight, she is being crushed by its presence. 

No. 

She is drowning in it. It fills her mouth, her nose, burns through her eyes. It claws down her throat into her lungs, her belly, her heart, her veins. It scrapes inside her skull, seeps into her brain. 

Her life flashes before her eyes. Her hatching, her exams, her parents, her siblings. All are seen and all are cast carelessly aside. Her hopes, her fears, her ambitions, each given a cursory examination and then discarded. _ She _ is being discarded. Shoved out of her own body to make room for the impossible mass of the Thing. She tries to push it back out, but all too soon she forgets what she is fighting. Forgets why she’s fighting. 

Then she forgets to fight at all.

All that is left is her curiosity, there is no fear when she asks: _ what are you? _

There is nothing at all left when it replies: ** _Awoken. _ **


End file.
